Various embodiments of the invention relate to a wide dynamic range (WDR) hardware apparatus and a photographing apparatus including the WDR hardware apparatus, and more particularly, to a WDR hardware apparatus capable of reducing a design area and a photographing apparatus including the WDR hardware apparatus.
When a subject is photographed using a digital camera, if a background of the subject is too bright, the subject is relatively dark, which is called back light. Back light compensation (BLC) is required to acquire a better quality image.
BLC performed by a photographing apparatus using an image pickup device is used to identify a subject that is dark while a background is bright when the subject is photographed under back light circumstances and is displayed on a monitor. Namely, BLC is used to enhance image quality in back light circumstances. When the entire brightness of an image on which BLC is performed is controlled, a dark area of the image becomes bright while a bright area thereof is brighter, which makes a boundary of a subject unclear or causes loss of information of the bright area.
A wide dynamic range (WDR) technology combines an image in which a bright area is clearly seen by controlling exposure thereof and different images in which dark areas are clearly seen by controlling exposure thereof, and generates an image in which bright and dark areas are very clearly seen.
Such a WDR function has a wide range of applications in all image photographing apparatuses such as surveillance cameras for security and monitoring, general digital cameras, broadcast photographing equipments, vehicle cameras, mobile phone cameras, and the like.
BLC that uses the WDR function processes and combines images having different exposure times, which requires a large design area for processors and supporting circuitry, a large amount of calculation time, and power consumption.